


polaroid

by skuls



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Sort Of, s11 spec
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2018-12-25 18:40:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12041892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skuls/pseuds/skuls
Summary: The aftermath of William's meeting with Mulder and Scully.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was an accidental series that I have absolutely no idea where it's going. Parts are based off of spoilers from the s11 set.

It was a Polaroid, which was how you could tell it was old. William didn’t want to look at it. It felt slippery and unfamiliar in his hands. He didn’t want to look at it, but expectant eyes were bearing into him, so he forced himself.

The woman–Scully, he reminded himself, Dana Scully–was sitting on a striped couch in front of a Christmas tree. She was smiling, and William barely knew the woman outside of months he didn’t remember, but he knew that kind of smile was unusual. She looked a muted sort of happy, like something was missing. But there was an unquestionable amount of love in her eyes as she looked down at the baby (him) in her arms. He was dressed in the dumbest UFO onesie and was chewing on a teething ring. Scully (his mother, his birth mother) was cupping his head in one hand and had the pointer finger of her other hand captured in his tiny fingers. She actually looked like a mother. She was dressed in a worn Oxford sweatshirt that was clearly too large for her, and it didn’t take a detective (or the apparent son of two FBI agents) to figure out whose it was. Who was missing from the picture.

It was painful to look at. William swallowed hard, looked away. Looked up at the man who’d handed him the picture. Mulder stood awkwardly, one hand in his pocket, his eyes full of apology. The same way they’d been since they’d met for the first (second) time a few days ago. They both seemed to be full of regret, his birth parents. But it didn’t change anything. 

“I’m sorry to, uh, dump this on you,” Mulder said. He was looking at the ground. It seemed to be painful for him to look at his son, and William felt the fresh sting of that every time. “It’s just. I can only guess at all the things you must be feeling, the questions you must have. And I just. I just want you to know that she loved you. Loves you. So much.” He cleared his throat, and when he spoke again, he sounded on the verge of tears. “You were all she ever wanted. Giving you up like that, it almost killed her. And I know things are complicated, and you don’t have to love us–you, uh, you don’t have any reason to–but I just, I just wanted you to know that she loves you.”

Mulder looked up at William, and his eyes were so full of emotion that William had to look away. God, this was hard. He hadn’t expected it to be this hard. He hadn’t expected to resent his birth parents. He hadn’t expected them to make it so hard to resent them. 

Mulder added shakily, “And there’s no photographic evidence of this, but… I love you, too. I always have.”

William bit his lip so hard he tasted blood. It doesn’t matter, he thought about saying. I don’t care, he thought about saying. But he remembered the night they’d met–Scully’s look of astonishment when she’d seen him, the tears that had sprung to her eyes. The unconscious way she’d lifted her arms for a hug and the inevitable hurt that she’d tried to hide when he hadn’t responded. He looked down at the picture again. Dana and William, Christmas 2001, someone had written on the back. Once upon a time, this woman had been his mother. Once upon a time, she stopped, and she sent him away, and he found a new family he was happy with. Once upon a time, this woman had kept going with her life without her son, and she’d regretted it every day. 

William couldn’t quite forgive, and he certainly couldn’t forget. A tangle of dark emotions dredged up as he considered his birth parents, ones that might never go away. But he couldn’t bring himself to blow them off completely either. He touched his birth mother’s face, frozen in 2001, looked up to meet Mulder’s eyes, and said, “Thank you.”


	2. Chapter 2

His birth parents had a large house, but not large enough for them, his birth parents, him, and a few assorted extras who were helping to clean up the destruction that the world had been resorted to. William, feeling three times as awkward among the strangers, holed up on a day bed in Mulder’s study. It wasn’t terrible, actually; there was enough random newspaper clippings and books and dusty files to keep him fairly entertained, and Scully’s dog liked to sleep in there. As long as he stayed in that room, he could ignore the reality of the situation. It was the end of the apocalypse, maybe, and he was stuck in a house with his real parents and his birth parents, but at least he had some musty old ghost stories to mull over.

His parents (the real one) were resting in Mulder and Scully’s guest room. Technically, William supposed, Mulder was supposed to be resting, too, but he ended up skulking around random corners of the house more often than not. He’d accidentally stumbled into his study so many times that William was starting to suspect that they weren’t accidents. Mulder would usually punctuate the awkwardness by offering food. They’d shared a few awkward conversations over messy sandwiches in the kitchen, but they hadn’t talked,  _really_ talked, since the day Mulder had given him the picture. 

Scully had been gone almost constantly since the first night they’d gotten back there. (Saving the world, Mulder explained.) He’d barely talked to her at all. He couldn’t stand to see her most of the time, anyway, couldn’t stand to see the mixture of pain and love swirling in her eyes when she saw him. 

They’d had something of a talk, that first night. After she’d taken samples from him and set up IVs for Mulder and his parents and a gangly FBI agent who’s name William couldn’t remember, she’d come and sat beside him on the couch where he’d collapsed. She handed him a water bottle, saying, “Drink this,” in a soft voice. “You’ll need fluids.” William nodded without saying anything, drinking half of the bottle in two gulps. Scully watched him quietly, her eyes following his every movement. She hadn’t said much to him outside of firm instructions since the bridge. “William?” she asked.

He jolted a little in place, water sloshing out of the top of the bottle. “H-how’s my mom and dad?” he stammered, fingers clenching around the cold bottle, and pretended he didn’t see Scully flinch.

“They’re stable. For now,” she said, in a steadier voice than he’d expected. “I’ll keep a close eye on them. They’ll… they’ll be okay.” She looked down at her knees. “And so will your f–so will Mulder.”

William nodded, wiping his damp, shaky fingers on his jeans. He hadn’t quite stopped trembling since Monica had shown up to their house and explained what needed to be done. (His mother had grabbed his hand on the plane and told him not to be scared. “They’re going to love you, baby,” she’d said, smoothing the cow lick at the back of his hair.  _Then why did they give me up?_  he’d responded silently.  _Then why did they only come looking for me now?_ ) He nodded, blankly, because he didn’t know what else to say.

“I feel like I owe you some explanations,” Scully said. She touched his shoulder; her fingers were freezing through his windbreaker. He shivered. “William, I know you must have a lot of questions…”

“Just one, really,” he replied, his voice unexpectedly harsh. It was the question he’d had since he was little, since he’d read all the books his parents bought him on adoption and had found nothing in them comforting. “Why did you give me up?”

She winced, audibly. “It was… I did it to keep you safe.” Her voice quivered, broke a little. “It was the only way I could see for you to have a normal life. But I… I’ve regretted it every day since then.”

William bit his lip. “So why didn’t you come for me? Why didn’t you ever look for me until you needed me to save your husband?”

Scully wiped under her eyes. They were the same blue he recognized from the mirror. There was no denying their connection. He never thought he’d feel this way about his birth mother when he met her, all those childhood years of fantasies, but now the resentment was real and here, under his skin. He couldn’t get rid of it. He wanted to go hug his parents hard and apologize for ever wishing for anything else besides them. 

“William,” Scully was saying. She squeezed his shoulder; he scooted away on instinct and she drew her hand away rapidly like she’d been burned. “It’s a long story…” 

“I’m going to go see my parents,” he blurted. 

“Okay,” she said softly. Defeated, like she’d expected it. “Try to stay hydrated as possible and not overexert yourself,” she added, rushed. In a voice he expected was her Doctor Voice. “You’re welcome to anything in the house. I’ll… I’ll be down the hall with your father if you need anything.” William nodded rapidly; all he’d wanted was to get out of there. He got to his feet and headed for the door, shoving his hands deep in his pockets. He found the guest room quickly, his parents tucked into bed with IVs hanging from the bed posts, and kissed his mother’s (his real mother) cheek and squeezed his father’s hand. He could feel his old guilt subsiding and new guilt coming under to replace it.

He’d barely seen Scully since that night. Only in passing, as she checked on his parents and reassured him that they would be fine. As she made him up a bed in Mulder’s study. As she came to find him and tell him that Mulder was awake and wanted to talk to him, if he didn’t think he’d mind. In passing as he dug through their cabinets for cereal in the early hours of the morning as she was leaving. (She smiled tentatively at him every time. Even after that first night, she still smiled at him.)

He didn’t know how to talk to them. Mulder or Scully. He didn’t know how to ask them about the pictures tacked up on Mulder’s wall, about the horror stories in the filing cabinet. He could let their dog sleep on his stomach, but he didn’t know how to ask who labeled the picture that Mulder had given him. If he was being completely fair, he didn’t know how to talk to his parents anymore, either. He felt like a traitor either way. He had two families, sort of, and this was definitely not the normal way to meet your birth parents. If there was a normal way. He wished the world hadn’t almost ended for the obvious reasons, of course, but also so that none of this ever had to happen.

He sat with his parents for a few hours until the both of them fell asleep and went into the kitchen to find food. He didn’t realize that Mulder and Scully were in the living room until he was already in there with the fridge door open; the blanket draped over the back of the couch was gone, and he caught a glimpse of dark hair over the top of the couch. It looked like Mulder was lying half-asleep on the couch and Scully was there curled around him. They were talking in a low voice, but William recognized his name. He swallowed hard, grabbed a bag of chips and left.

Daggoo was curled on the end of the bed, his nose resting on top of the Polaroid. He raised his head and yipped excitedly when William entered. William scratched the dog on top of his head and sat on the bed, shoving the bag of chips aside. Daggoo wriggled excitedly onto his lap, sending the photo cascading. William grabbed it as he steadied the dog, his eyes brushing over the picture again. Same Christmas tree. Same Oxford sweatshirt. Same UFO onesie. Same Scully holding him. He swallowed. He could feel his heart pounding.

“William?” Scully said from the door. He jumped, turning to look at her. Daggoo scrambled from his lap and ran to dance around Scully’s feet. “Sorry,” she said quickly. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I just wanted to check on you, see if you were hungry.”

William swallowed. “I could eat,” he said, sliding the picture off of his leg. He meant to move it out of sight, but the light flashed off of the photo and she saw it. Her eyes widened slightly. 

“Mulder gave me this,” William added quickly. “He, um…”  

She drew closer slowly, like she was ready to go away if he told her. “I remember that day,” she said softly. “We went to your grandmother’s for Christmas. My, uh, my brother was there with his family. Big get together.” She took a sharp breath. “But the holidays were… hard. It was the second Christmas I’d had to spend without your father. I was barely hanging on… you were the only thing that made that holiday even remotely happy.” She smiled a little. Just a little.

William looked back down at the picture again. The smile looked a little like the smile in the picture, frozen fifteen years ago. “I have a grandmother?”

Scully cleared her throat, sniffled a little. “She, um. She passed away about a month ago.”

He didn’t know why, but the news brought an unexpected lump to his throat. A grandmother he couldn’t remember. Now he’d never get to meet her. “I’m sorry,” he said uncertainly.

“I am, too.” She blinked rapidly, tucking hair behind her ears. 

William looked at the Oxford logo, the color going out of the F. He’d read somewhere in this stockpiled office that Mulder had been to Oxford. “Mulder wasn’t there for two Christmases?” he asked carefully. “He doesn’t seem like the type to…”  _Run out,_  he finished silently.

“He’s not,” Scully said fiercely. She shrugged. “I told you it was a long story.”

William gulped. Looked at the picture one more time before looking back to his birth mother. “Tell me,” he said.


	3. Chapter 3

She and Mulder were experts in not talking about things. Which was probably what had led to problems in the past, but they weren’t talking about that either. (A list of things they didn’t talk about: her sister’s funeral, the way her daughter had looked in a hospital bed, Diana Fowley’s flashing brown eyes, his sister’s diary that he kept closed in his desk, the way he looked in a funeral suit, the three days they’d spent as a family, when she’d let a social worker carry their son away, when she’d packed her bags and left.) They still weren’t talking about the fact that she was sleeping in their bed with him again (the quilts tucked around them and her curled around his back, chin resting on his shoulder). But they were talking about their son.

(It hurt a little bit, in the pit of her chest, to do it. It hurt to see all the sadness in Mulder’s face. But it also felt a little like breathing. Like they should’ve done it years ago.)

He looked like Mulder, their son. There was no denying it; he reminded her of the day she’d first walked into the basement office. Except for his eyes. They were hers, her mother’s and her daughter’s, the way Mulder had said they were the night she’d brought him home. The way she remembered him. She could recognize him from his eyes. He was her baby, all grown up. Except he wasn’t hers. Not anymore.

The house was crowded, with Langly holed up in the basement and Monica in the second bedroom and the Van de Kamps (she couldn’t call them his parents) in the downstairs guest room and William on the cot in Mulder’s office. She and Monica mostly left during the day, working on rebuilding the world, but it was still awkwardness waiting for her at home. She didn’t know how to talk to her son. It had been okay when the Van de Kamps were still recovering, but now that they were better they were popping up around corners, exchanging uncomfortable looks with the person they’d encountered before looking at the floor. She’d run into Lillian Van de Kamp in the kitchen one morning while the coffee brewed and had rushed to offer her a cup. (”We have to play nice,” she’d said into Mulder’s t-shirt the night before, and he’d pulled her closer into the warmth of the middle of the bed and pressed his nose into her hair.) “Thank you,” Lillian mumbled, taking the mug Scully offered. “Dr. Scully. Or… it’s Dana, right?”

Scully bit her lip hard. Her own son called her Scully; she’d never imagined this. “Yes, it’s Dana,” she said.

“It’s good to meet you,” said Lillian. “Again, I guess.”

She had to hold back the urge to ask about William, ask about every single moment she’d missed in the last fifteen years. “You, too,” she replied softly. 

The other woman shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. “I wanted to thank you,” she said. “For… saving me and my husband.”

_I should thank you for raising my son, except I regret giving him up so much that my throat hurts every time I think about it._ Scully swallowed and said, “Of course.”

“I guess I never expected…” Lillian cleared her throat and shifted from foot to foot. “I mean, I never thought that…”

Scully had never let herself think of reunions with her son–it was too much like twisting the knife. So much pain she couldn’t breathe. And when she’d slipped and fallen into memories of it all anyway, it had always been William. William at various ages, some where he ran up and hugged her tightly, some where he glared up at her and demanded to know why she’d left him behind. Some where he’d turn and run away. Some where she could see the truth behind his eyes, flowing through his veins. But in all the imagined reunions, she’d never imagined her son’s adoptive parents slumped in the backseat of Monica Reyes’s car, never imagined her son gripping her arm and demanding that she save his parents first. He’d wanted to help them first and not Mulder, and that might’ve been what stung the most. She never imagined the people who got to raise her son instead of her, got everything she’d ever wanted. She couldn’t let herself consider the possibilities, good or bad.

“I know,” she said to her son’s (other) mother. “Believe me, I know.”

Lillian gulped her coffee, still shifting back and forth. “So,” she said. “So, when do you think we’ll be able to leave?”

It caught her by surprise, a sucker punch. She almost dropped her mug. With shaking hands, she managed to set it on the counter and swallowed against impeding nausea. “Leave?” she repeated numbly. God, she didn’t know if she could let her son go again. She didn’t know if Mulder would forgive her a second time.

“Well, yes,” Lillian said awkwardly. “I mean, Miss Reyes said that the vaccine was being administered around the world, that things were starting to return to normal… and we have a life back in Wyoming, friends, family…” 

“Mom?” 

William appeared in the kitchen, a nervous look on his face, and Scully was inches away from answering before she remembered. “What is it, sweetie?” Lillian answered, almost cheerfully.

“Um, Mulder said I could take Daggoo out for a walk. But, um, he said I had to ask you first.” William’s eyes flitted nervously in between Scully and Lillian, like he wasn’t sure what to do. 

“I guess that’s okay.” Lillian cleared her throat. “Dana? What do you think?”

Scully’s heart leapt in her throat until she realized that she was being consulted on how safe it would be rather than for consent. “I think it’ll be okay,” she said, addressing mostly William. “But stay close. Don’t leave the property, don’t go too far into the woods, and stay away from the main road.” 

“Okay.” William swallowed hard and turned to retrieve Daggoo’s leash from the hook on the wall. “Mom, I don’t think it’s safe for us to leave yet,” he said quietly.

Lillian was clearly startled. “What?”

“Just, I don’t think it’s safe yet. And Scully and Mulder know how to protect us.” He wasn’t looking at either of them, but staring at the floor. “You know, I think we should stay a while.”

Silence. Scully forced words up out of her mouth like bile. “You’re welcome here as long as you want,” she said. “All of you.” She wouldn’t look at Lillian. She was watching her son. 

“Of course, baby, if that’s what you want,” Lillian said in a voice that was clearly forced cheerfulness. She wasn’t looking at Scully, either. William was the center of their gravity at that moment, the supernova in the room. Scully thought about when he was a baby, so tiny and warm in her arms, the way he’d tugged her hair with excitement when she’d picked him up, how his laugh had sounded just like his father;  _please, don’t go,_  she thought, and wasn’t quite sure why.

“Yeah,” William said. He turned to look at them and offered them both a smile that had much too many teeth in it to be real. Mulder had told her, once, about his method of peace-making between his parents after Samantha, after the divorce, which was usually to pretend nothing was wrong whenever they were actually in the same mood. Scully didn’t know if William was applying the same concept to this particular situation, but still. She smiled back.

William had whistled for Daggoo and hooked him to the leash before disappearing outside, and Lillian had mumbled an awkward farewell before disappearing, and Scully had gone to save the world with Monica Reyes. Business as usual, or something like that. She and Mulder were experts at not talking about things, and William had probably inherited that quality.

The house felt like a prison at times, piled full of people that she didn’t know how to talk to or wanted to avoid all together. But there was no where else to  _go_. It was definitely strange to come home that night and find William, Mulder, and both Van de Kamps in the living room watching one of the  _Star Wars_  movies. Strange, sure, but understandable.

William was the one to see her first. “Hi, Scully,” he said in a rush. “There was… nothing else to do.” Something of an explanation.

Mulder looked away from the TV and immediately smiled. He was uncomfortable, she could tell by the way he was sitting, but the smile seemed genuine. He seemed happier and happier to see her since this all had started. “Hey, doc. Saved the world yet?”

“Making progress.” She cleared her throat and went to sit beside Mulder on the smaller couch. “Which movie?”

To her surprise, it was William’s (other) father who answered, sitting between William and his wife on the larger couch (the leather one from Mulder’s old apartment). “ _Empire_. I think we’re in agreement that it’s the best of them.”

“Oh, definitely,” said William. 

Scully smiled a little at this and rested her cheek on Mulder’s shoulder. She tried to watch the movie but her eyes kept moving back to her son.

Sometime around the Millennium Falcon’s arrival in Cloud City, Lillian Van de Kamp cleared her throat and announced, “It’s late, honey. Your father and I are going to go to bed.”

William made a face. “Come on, Mom, they’re not even to the best part yet!”

“Come on, son,” his father said. “It’s late. We’re tired. We have some recovering from a virus to do.” He clearly meant it as a joke, but Scully could see William’s grimace in the wavering lights of the television. He nodded, quiet, and Lillian leaned over to kiss him on top of the head. Scully looked away until they both had left the room. Mulder squeezed her hand.

William shifted in the empty space of the couch, pulling Daggoo onto his lap. “Please at least tell me you’re at least staying for the rest of the movie,” he said quietly to Mulder and Scully.

Mulder squeezed her hand again. “Can’t miss the big reveal. Right, Scully?”

Scully was watching William. “No,” she said. “No, of course not.”

So they watched the end of the movie with their son as it progressively grew darker outside. Scully could feel Mulder tense at the infamous scene:  _No, Luke, I am your father._ None of them spoke until the credits rolled. Scully wondered if William was thinking of the same things they were. 

William let out a sigh, flopping back against the couch cushions. “You saw the new one, right?” he asked conversationally.

Unsure of who he was talking to, Scully said nothing. “Sure,” Mulder said good-naturedly. “Last December.”

“What’d you think?”

“ _Phantom Menace_  was better,” said Mulder in a tone that Scully instantly knew was kidding. She wanted to smile. God, he talked to him so easily. If the world didn’t need saving, she’d probably never leave the house.

William turned to look at them, making a face that was somewhere between in-credulousness and sarcasm. Mulder made a face back. Scully tried to hide a smile behind her hand. “Good thing you’re kidding,” their son said seriously.

“Good thing,” Scully said, and lost the urge to pretend she wasn’t smiling. 

William smiled a little back, got up from the couch with Daggoo scrambled after him. “Good night,” he said politely, lifting his hand in a awkward wave.

It felt like too abrupt of an end, but it also felt like progress. They’d spent about a half hour alone with their son. She didn’t think they’d all three been alone in the same room since the first night she treated Mulder for the disease. Han Solo would be found in the next movie, and they’d see their son in the morning. A cliffhanger, maybe, but not an ending. Not now. “Good night,” she said as he passed, and tried not to think of putting him to bed when he was a baby.

“Don’t let the Flukeman bite,” Mulder added. Their son turned back to smirk at him. They had some kind of an inside joke. Scully wanted to cry. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d smiled this much.

They could hear every one of his footsteps to Mulder’s study, the door scraping shut. “Flukeman, Mulder?” she asked immediately.

He shrugged. “He asked. He dug up some of the files I brought home for safekeeping and was reading through them.”

“Oh, god, I don’t even want to think about what he’s found in there.” She was still holding his hand. She squeezed it tightly. “I think this is going well,” she said quietly. She felt something close to desperation, the things she’d felt when he was dying, reappear, and moved closer, pressing her forehead into his shoulder. “Don’t you?” she mumbled into his shirtsleeve.

He didn’t answer, just looped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, resting his chin on her head. They sat close in the dark for a long time.


	4. Chapter 4

William had been having weird dreams since he was a kid, padding down the hall and crawling into bed with his parents after a nightmare for years until it seemed too babyish. And the worst part was that most of the time, the dreams seemed to come true, in one way or another. He’d dreamed about the cat getting hit by a car three days before it had happened, and the time his dad had gotten really sick and had to have surgery. Once or twice, he’d dreamed the contents of an upcoming test and found his dream to be accurate. (He hadn’t minded those too much.) But the ones that had probably been the scariest were the ones in the smoke-choked office and the scary older man sitting in the chair. He hadn’t had one of those since he was ten, but they always terrified him for some reason he couldn’t explain. The office was full of pictures of people who looked like him, files with long, Sharpied-out passages and CLASSIFIED written in bold letters across the top, ashtrays among ashtrays. He’d had the first one when he was four and had crawled under the desk and refused to come out. The smoking man had called out in a melodic voice and he put his hands over his ears and shut his eyes until everything faded into the familiarity of his bedroom. (He did that a lot in dreams.)

Two weeks after arriving at Mulder and Scully’s, he had the dream again. He was lying on the floor of the nicotine-smelling office, his cheek plastered to the rug. He scrambled to his feet clumsily, looking around. The room was empty. On the desk in front of him was a pile of cigarettes beside an ashtray and a slew of pictures spread across the table.

William drew closer and held in a gasp. He recognized Scully’s SUV, parked in front of a sprawling hospital. Covert shots of Monica Reyes and Scully in a lab, Scully in various hospital rooms, Scully and that one guy Skinner in a conference room. William held his breath and flipped further through the photos. An immaculate apartment, the house he was sleeping in right now, hotel rooms. A picture of her with a baby– _him_. Taking him out of the car, years ago, a stupid hat on his head. He tensed all over, holding his breath.

“William,” said a voice behind him. The smoker. When he turned around, he couldn’t see the smoker; there was a blinding flash of light and the screech of bending metal.

He woke up with a start, cold all over except for a very small spot where Daggoo was curled into him. He gulped in breaths of fresh air, huddling under the thin quilts piled over him.  _Just a dream,_ he tried, but he knew that couldn’t be true. Scully was connected to the smoking man somehow, and she was in trouble. Things like that had happened with an eerie accuracy too many times to be false.

Light was streaming in through the window. It looked early. Scully might not have left yet, he realized, and rolled off of the bed, sending Daggoo tumbling with a yip. He could catch her. He didn’t know if she’d believe him, but if the files were any indication, it might be enough to stop her. His feet slid over the bare floorboards as he went through the hall and to the kitchen. Mulder and his weird friend, Langly something, were sitting at the table with laptops. Mulder looked up as soon as he came in, saying, “Will,” with some kind of pleasant surprise.

“Has Scully left yet?” William blurted.

Langly blinked in surprise. Mulder exchanged something of a stricken look with him and turned back to William. “An hour ago. Why?”

William looked between them, uncertain. Aside from his best friend in the third grade (who’d thankfully thought he was crazy, since they weren’t friends anymore), he’d never told anyone about the dreams. About how he could make things  _move_ sometimes if he concentrated hard enough. (He loved  _Star Wars_ and hated  _Carrie,_  if that said anything about him.) But this was important. And if anyone was going to believe him, it would probably be the paranormal investigator in the room.

“You’re not going to believe me,” he said.

Langly snorted. “You clearly don’t know Mulder,” he said.

William met his birth father’s eyes. There was encouragement there, and something of a faint desperation. He took a deep breath. “He knows where Scully is,” he said. “The guy with the cigarettes. He’s had surveillance on her for years, and he has pictures of the hospital where she and Miss Reyes are. I saw it in a dream.”

—

Scully had no way of getting in touch with anyone staying at their house; in the chaos of the past few weeks, someone had knocked down the nearest cell tower and they were disconnected from everyone, at least until she and Reyes got into the city. (Langly had hooked up some rogue Wi-Fi hotspot that managed to work with their laptops, but phones still weren’t an option.) Which was part of why she was confused at the unfamiliar number calling her that morning. She didn’t have William or the Van de Kamps as contacts, but the cell reception was still an issue. And she couldn’t think of anyone else who’d be calling her outside of her brothers, but she had Bill’s number (and had talked to him several nights since this had all started, promising to fly out as soon as possible) and she’d begrudgingly programmed in Charlie’s number after her mother. Brow furrowed in confusion, Scully showed the screen to Monica. “A number you recognize?”

She shook her head, confusion flickering over her face. “Just a second, let me call my contact on the inside,” she said, referring to her time undercover in the Syndicate. (Deep enough undercover that she couldn’t reveal her position until after she had William safely in her custody. Scully couldn’t express how much relief had coursed through her veins when she’d seen Monica pushing her way through the crowd on the bridge as the light vanished, shouting her explanations over the blur of voices in the background as a lanky teenage boy stood behind her. She didn’t really believe Monica was a traitor. She couldn’t.) “Go ahead and answer,” Monica added as she stepped towards the door, pulling her cell phone out of her jacket. “Might as well find out, right?”

Scully nodded, pressing Send on her phone. “Hello?” she said calmly, half-hoping that Mulder or Langly had found a way to call.

Nothing but the harsh sound of raspy breathing into the speaker.

Scully’s fingers clenched hard around the phone. Mulder had told her about his visit to the smoker, hugging her hard with his nose pressed to her collarbone. She couldn’t believe he was alive, but he was. “You,” she said through clenched teeth.

“Why the harsh tone, Agent Scully?” said Spender pleasantly. “I saved your life, after all.”

“What the hell do you want?” Scully snapped, two seconds away from hanging up.

“Just for you to be aware of what awaits you at home.”

Her breath froze in her chest. “What?” she whispered. She didn’t think she could manage anything louder than that.

“I’ve seen men to your house,” he said. “To find your son. And Mulder. And that pesky informant friend of yours. As you can imagine, my interests were compromised…”

“What have you done to them?” she growled. God, she thought this was over, she thought it’d be over when she saved Mulder. And William, William… he hadn’t been in danger in years. But now…

“Nothing yet,” the smoker replied jovially. “I’d hurry if I were you.”

Scully hung up the phone. She burst out of the room, fumbling for her gun under her suit jacket. She rushed past Monica in the hall, ignoring her calls asking what was going on. There was no time. She had to get to them. She found Mulder in her contacts and called him, even though she knew about the cell tower. Maybe by some magic, it had been fixed. “Pick up, pick up, pick up,” she whispered desperately, yanking the car door open and collapsing in the driver’s seat. She felt like it was two weeks ago, like she was stuck in a desperate cycle of worry that spanned twenty-four years. Mulder didn’t pick up. She called again, putting it on Speaker and jamming into the cup holder. She backed out of the parking space and stepped on it, fingers clenching hard around the wheel as she speeded out of the parking garage.

She drove halfway through the city in a crazed delirium, pressing the little green phone button on Mulder’s contact tab again and again. She had to get to them. Her lead foot was coming in handy. She pressed call again and listened to the empty rings echoing through the car. She was looking up when the car hit her.

—

Mulder believed him. He didn’t have much of a choice; his son had Scully’s eyes and he saw the truth in them. He had to go and warn her. He muttered something about goddamn phone towers as he fumbled for the car keys.

“I dunno what’s going on, um, but I haven’t had a dream about the smoking office in five years,” William was saying, leaning hard against the counter. “I guess you know him… I thought you might, I saw pictures of you in the office… from when you were a kid, I think…”

“Son of a bitch,” Mulder muttered, before he remembered the teenager in the room. “Don’t say that, Will.” He rummaged through the junk drawer rabidly. Where the hell were the keys? Oh, right, he’d left his car at the smoker’s house because that kid Miller had to come scrape him off the pavement. “ _Shit_.”

“Mulder, I can drive you, man,” Langly said, grabbing his shoulder. “I have a car, remember?”

He turned, clumsily, to face him. “Thanks,” he said. “Thank you. We should go, um. We need to go. Will… William… you should be safe out here, but…”

“Wait, I’m coming with you,” William said, in the self-assured voice that he remembered from his own teenage years. No argument. He finally understood his parents’ side of the equation.

“No, you’re not,” he said automatically, in what he hoped was a.stern parental voice, but probably just resembled the panic knotting in the pit of his stomach. “You can’t. It’s not safe.”

“Showing up on a bridge during the apocalypse to donate my stem cells or whatever wasn’t exactly safe either,” William snapped. His hands were balled in his pockets and he had a look of furious determination on his face. It looked so familiar, god, his son.

“That was different,” Mulder snapped back, although he wasn’t entirely sure why. “This is preventable. You need to stay here with your parents.” (Mulder had the same stubborn determination that Scully did to not refer to them as William’s parents, but here he didn’t exactly have a choice. The word still hurt, still dredged up resentment he thought he’d buried deep enough, but it was the only word to use, wasn’t it.)

“They know about here, too. It’s no safer here than there.”

Mulder exchanged a look with Langly, who shrugged helplessly. Their son was just as stubborn as Scully and just as impulsive as him. He wasn’t sure it made a good combination. God, Scully, Scully was in danger, and he couldn’t put his son in danger too. He couldn’t lose either of them, but he couldn’t lose both of them. He took a deep breath and forced his voice to go calm, said, “Will,” softly. “I appreciate you telling me about what you saw. You don’t know how grateful I am. But I have to keep you safe. We don’t know if it’ll be dangerous or not. Your parents would never be okay with it. You need to stay here.”

William gulped, rocking back and forth on his feet. “I can help,” she said quietly. “With Scully, if she’s hurt. I can help. I did it a couple of times before. Never very much, so I wouldn’t get caught, but I’ve done it on a person before. I can help.”

Mulder took a deep breath, looked at Langly again. Langly looked uncertain; he shrugged at Mulder again, in a way that indicated that he thought William had a point. Mulder took another deep breath, clenched his jaw. “You stay in the car,” he said. “Unless I tell you it’s okay, you stay in the car. You do exactly what Langly or I tell you. Okay?”

William nodded. Mulder exhaled, reached out to squeeze his son’s shoulder. “Okay,” he said softly. His mind was still racing, coming up with all the things that could be happening to Scully. “Okay. You need to tell your parents. Tell them I’ll keep you safe.”

William nodded again, turned and headed back to the guest room, sneakers squeaking loudly on the floor. Mulder turned back to Langly, sick panic building in the pit of his stomach. “Is this a good idea?” he asked softly.

“I guess we’ll find out,” said Langly.

A minute later, William reemerged with the Van de Kamps in tow. Something turned in Mulder’s stomach–he did not have time to argue with them, what was he thinking, this was insane, there was no way he could take William with them, he needed to go–when the husband (Toby, he thought his name was) spoke. “Will filled us in,” he said, hand on William’s shoulder. William looked mildly embarrassed, squirming under the awkwardness. Mulder didn’t blame him.

“Right,” he said, finger brushing over the butt of the gun in his holster. “Right, um…”

“We’re coming with you,” Lillian said, matter-of-factly. The both of them looked uncomfortable about it, like they’d rather be doing anything else, but William must’ve said something to persuade them. He was staring at the top of his shoes uncomfortably.

“Right,” Mulder said again. As long as he could get to Scully and warn her, he could endure an awkward car ride with his son’s adoptive parent, his long-dead friend, and the teenage son he barely knew. “We should get going, then.”

—

She was half-conscious when someone pulled open the door of the car, grabbed her wrist, around the waist, and started trying to pull her from the car. She groaned, blinking through the haze. Her head hurt too much. She heard the hard smack of knuckles on skin, and whoever was trying to pull her from the car let go. And then the over-eager voice of Agent Miller, taking an unusually concerned tone: “Agent Scully! Agent Scully?”

Scully groaned again, opening her eyes wider. “Agent Miller?” she muttered.

“Here, here, let me help.” Miller moved to lift her out of the car; she looped an arm around his neck for balance as he set her on her feet. She stumbled slightly, Miller still supporting her, but somehow managed to stand on her own.

She blinked, pain thumping through her head, and turned to see Einstein handcuffing someone on the sidewalk. She clenched her teeth and asked, “What happened?”

“Agent Reyes sent us after you,” Miller supplied. “We got here in time to see you get T-boned. By the time we reached the wreckage, that guy was trying to pull you out.” He indicated with a jab of his thumb.

She groaned as pain sliced through her ribs when she tried to move. She fucking hated car crashes. “The smoker must have sent him,” she growled, pressing a hand to her bruised side. And then she remembered. “William,” she gasped. “And Mulder… he sent someone after them, he…”

“Agent Scully, calm down.” Miller steered her towards the car gently. “We’re going to get you back to the hospital so they can check you out, okay?”

She gritted her teeth and tried to turn around. “Someone’s going there to find them, I have to warn them.”

“It’s fine, Agent Scully. We’ll go take care of it. They’ll be fine.” Miller moved her towards his and Einstein’s car. “You need to get to the hospital.”

Scully would’ve argued more, but it hurt too damned much. She let Miller lead her to the car.

—

They’d been driving for almost forty-five minutes when they hit a traffic jam, just inside the city. Mulder swore and smacked the dashboard with the flat of his hand, and then gazed apologetically at the Van de Kamps in the backseat. Beside William, his father shrugged.

(The most surprising thing was how laid back he seemed about all this, William had noted more than once. The second night after they’d regained consciousness, he’d sat in the room with his dad while his mom took a bath and had stumbled over awkward apologies out of nowhere, embarrassed to have spent so much time with his birth mom. That they were there in the first place. This was all supposed to have ended when Scully gave up custody, and William was somehow embarrassed that it hadn’t. His dad had waited for him to finish before saying, “Will, you’re kind of in an awkward position here, son.”

William had gulped. “Yeah, I know.”

“I think you’re doing the best you can, all things considered.” His father smiled and tousled his hair, something William had declared himself entirely too old for in recent years, but didn’t mind so much in the moment. “You don’t have anything to feel guilty for. We didn’t have a choice. Besides, Dr. Scully saved your mother and I, and we owe them for that. And they seem like nice people.”

William gulped again, his mind guiltily turning back to the Polaroid he had ended up keeping on the window sill by his bed. “They are,” he mumbled, feeling like a traitor.)

His mother seemed more uncomfortable with all of this, but she was keeping her mouth shut about it either way. She had momentarily offered William an encouraging smile for most of the uncomfortable car ride. Now, her express twitched into concern as she gazed at the stall up ahead of them.

Fidgeting anxiously in the backseat, William craned his neck to see what was going on. “Someone crash?” he asked of no one in particular, foot tapping absently against the seat.

Langly shrugged. Mulder said nothing. His parents seemed to be avoiding his eyes.

William looked down at his grimy sneakers on the carpet floor of Langly’s car, and all of a sudden he knew. Could see the wreckage of Scully’s car in the back of his brain.

It was the summer he was eleven all over again, with his cousin crumpled on his side with his arm at a strange angle and his hands all shaky as he tried to make it work, but it  _would_ work. It had to. He was fucking Carrie or a Jedi or an alien or something, and he could help his birth mother. He fumbled for the door handle and stumbled out, hitting the ground running without a second thought.

“Will?” he thought he could hear his mom call, in a panic, but it was hard to hear anything over the slap of his sneakers on the pavement. He wove his way through stalled cars until he reached the block, the wreckage. Sirens wailing in the distance, and some red-headed woman shoving a man in handcuffs towards a car and Scully sitting in the backseat of a second car. There were bruises up and down the side of her face; her eyes were shut like she was in pain.

William jogged to the car, heart thudding. “Scully?”

She opened her eyes, startled, and relief immediately washed over her surprise. “William,” she said, and it was like a held breath whooshing out. “You’re okay.”

He swallowed hard, hands shaking as he reached out to touch her arm. “Are you okay? You, um, your car…”

“I’m fine.” She grimaced at the words and put a hand to her side, clearly not fine.

William blinked hard, trying not to look at the wreckage. “I don’t want you to die,” he said. Somehow, all he could see was that stupid Polaroid. The way he’d been acting since he got here, the way he snapped at her on that first night. “I was mad at you, but I don’t want you to die.”

She smiled, just a little and obviously painfully, but still. “I’m not going to die, Will,” she said at length, like every word hurt. “I’m just a little bruised. It’s okay.” She reached out through gritted teeth and pushed the hair out of his forehead. It was such a maternal gesture and it made him think of the glossy edges of the photo under his finger.

William bit his lip hard. “I can help,” he said, feeling utterly helpless despite. And he touched her arm again, concentrated hard. His hands didn’t shake.

When he opened his eyes, Scully looked considerably better. Her face was white, but the bruises were gone. And she was staring at him. “William?” she whispered. Her hand was warm on his forehead.

He didn’t know what to do. He pulled his arm away and nodded.  _Yep, I can do that._ Her hand slipped off of his head under its motion.The most telling thing was that she didn’t look surprised.

And then Mulder was behind them, calling their names. William turned and saw him pushing through the police cars, the FBI agent from the bridge and the woman who was arresting the guy earlier watching. The same relief that had come when Scully had seen him moved across her face. Mulder reached them, squeezed William’s shoulder and reached for Scully’s hand. “What happened?” he asked breathlessly, squeezing her fingers hard. His eyes widened at the wreck of her car. “Are you okay, Scully?”

Scully took his hand in both of hers. “It’s a long story, Mulder.”

He moved closer and wrapped his arms around her gently, mumbling, “My god, Scully,” into her hair. She was hugging him back just as tightly, nails digging into the back of his jacket. William bounced back and forth on the balls of his feet and purposefully looked away. He liked to make fun of his parents when they were affectionate, but he didn’t know Mulder and Scully well enough for that. He looked past the police cars, where his parents were pushing their way through the crowd.

His mother was half-jogging, but mostly just walking fast like she was trying not to run. “William?” she said frantically when she reached him, obviously pushing back panic. She reached out to smooth his wayward hair. (The gesture reminded him too much of Scully in the moment and it hurt; he wanted to close his eyes against the guilt.) “What happened, baby?” His father reached them, eyes full of confusion and concern.

“It’s okay, Mom,” William said. On impulse, he looked over his shoulder at his birth parents. Mulder was bent over Scully in the seat; she seemed to be reassuring him in a teasing way. He pushed hair away from her face and kissed her forehead lingeringly. William looked away again, back at his parents. “It’s fine. I promise. It’s okay,” he said again, and accepted his mom’s hug.

The sirens on the police car sprung to life as it pull away. The feeling of anxiousness that scrabbled around the inside of William’s ribs like a live thing finally settled and he breathed out a sigh of relief. They’d be okay.


	5. Chapter 5

They'd ended up at a near-abandoned hotel, a result of half the world's population being incapacitated. (Once, at the lengthy time they'd spent at William's birth parents’ house, one of the few TV channels still running had been giving reports of the dead, and Lillian had shuddered and turned it off. It could've been so, so, so much worse. But it was bad. There was no denying how bad it was.) The hotel was an empty, still-lit Holiday Inn with rickety vending machines and eerie hallways. But the lights still worked. Lillian and Toby sat on one of the beds and ate snacks from the vending machine. They didn't talk because they weren't sure what to say.

William came in from the door between the rooms. (Mulder and Scully were on the other side.) “Hi, sweetie,” Lillian said, false cheery, brushing aside a crumpled Doritos bag.

“Hey, Mom,” he replied, flopping on the bed in the typical teenage way he'd picked up over the past couple of years. He seemed to have gone through a rapid maturity in these past few weeks, but there were things about him that kept reminding Lillian that he was still a kid, still her baby. She wondered how Dana must be feeling.

“How's Dr. Scully?” Toby asked from beside her. He seemed genuinely concerned, something that kept surprising Lillian: his receptiveness to William’s birth parents.

“Fine. I told you. I fixed it.” William was fidgeting, picking at the edge of the comforter.

“You healed her,” Lillian supplied. She couldn't believe it, but she could. Her son. She remembered the sickly baby bird they'd taken in when William was six, the one she'd been sure had died, that Toby had gotten rid of before William could find the body. She'd nurtured her son's insistence that the bird had flown away, not wanting to upset him. It wasn't until years later that she brought it up and Toby said he thought she'd taken care of it all that time. It looked like they were both wrong. All this time, and she'd never known. He'd never told her.

William cleared his throat, crossing his legs. “Yeah. I did.” He gulped, unraveling a thread on the hem of his t-shirt.

Lillian bit her lip. She had to believe it; she'd seen Dana’s car, and while it wasn't too bad, there was no way she could've walked away without at least a few bruises. “I just don't understand why you've never told us,” she started.

“I didn't think you'd believe me.”

“Of course we'd believe you,” said Lillian, although she wasn't sure. “You're our son. It's our job to believe you.”

William shrugged, staring at his knees.

“How long have you…” Toby motioned vaguely.

“I dunno. As long as I can remember.”

“Does it… hurt?” Lillian asked. Her chest ached at the thought of all these years of her son healing wounds and moving things with his mind all these years, alone.

William shook his head quickly, a faint blush spreading across his cheeks.

“Do you know where they…” Toby cleared his throat awkwardly, unscrewing the cap on his Mountain Dew. “Do Dr. Scully and Mulder know how you…”

“I think so. We haven't talked a lot about it. Scully mostly just told me about stuff that happened after she had me. I think, um. I think it might be related to the people who went after Scully today,” William muttered.

Lillian swallowed. She stood and approached the bed, smoothing his hair. “Oh, sweetie,” she whispered.

William fidgeted, shifting back and forth on the bed. “Scully said she gave me up to keep me safe,” he said quietly. “But I think they would've found me either way.”

Lillian kissed his temple and sat on the bed beside him. She would do anything for him, she thought. Anything at all.

“It sounds like Mulder and Scully have been through a lot,” Toby said uneasily.

William nodded emphatically. “They have.”

They verged off into silence. William accepted the candy bar Toby tossed him and began chewing in silence, cellophane crackling under his fingers. Lillian stared at the patterns in the rug. “Will you be safe now?” she asked the red swirls and the blue border.

William started. “What?”

“Will you be safe now? I mean, they went after Dana today, right? Miss Reyes said that they might’ve gone to Mulder and Dana’s house, that's why we're here. Are you safe here? With Mulder and Dana?”

She looked up when William didn't say anything. His hands were pressing into his knees and his face was so white she could count all of his freckles. “I'm gonna go take a shower, Mom,” he mumbled.

“Will…” she started, but he was already standing and heading into the bathroom. Lillian watched him go, a lump forming in her throat. She wished the world had never ended, that they'd stayed in Wyoming. William had a history test coming up. She could help him study.

“I know this is hard, Lil,” Toby started, from the bed.

She turned to look at her husband, curled on the bed. The lump grew bigger. She brushed aside some snack foods and curled up beside him, her head on his shoulder. “It's more than hard, hon, and you know it,” she whispered, hands pressing into his chest. “I know you're having trouble, too. You're a good actor, but I know this is hard for you, too.”

Toby kissed her cheek. “Of course it is. I don't think I expected anything different.” He wrapped his arms around her tightly, smoothing her hair. “But they care about him, Lil. You know they do. And honestly, sweetie, I'm not sure if he's any safer without them. Remember what Monica told us at Mulder and Scully’s house? How the people she'd been undercover with were watching him? He might be safer _with_ them.”

Lillian sniffed, her nails scraping over the buttons on his shirt. “I just don't want to lose him,” she said. “In any way. I don't want him to die, and I don't want him to…” She took in a sharp breath. “To choose them over us.”

It had been her fear ever since Monica had shown up on their doorstep, since William had crawled on her lap at age seven in pajamas and wet hair and asked about his birth parents. William had told her he'd never leave them behind on the plane (“You're my mom,” he'd said, voice rising as it became clear that her condition was worsening along with Toby’s, “you're always gonna be my mom.”), but that was before he'd met Mulder and Dana. Before he'd spent weeks in their house playing with their dog and reading their old files and watching _Star Wars_ with them. Before he healed Dana on the side of the road. Before he'd spent the past hour with them.

Toby stiffened in her arms. “Oh, hon,” he said softly. “He won't. He won't do that. He's our son.”

“He's their son, too,” Lillian said, even though she'd read all the adoption books, raised William from nine months old. “They love him. And he doesn't know them well, but he likes them a lot.”

“I know,” Toby mumbled. “I know. And I think… I think that's okay. But he's our son, Lillian. That's never going to change. We're all he knows, and he loves us. Three weeks doesn't erase fourteen years.”

She sniffled, kissed his shoulder and rested his chin on it. They lay there together in silence until the water turned off in the bathroom.

William padded into the room a minute later, crawling into bed. “Long day, huh,” said Toby faux-cheerfully.

“Uh-huh,” he muttered.

“Will, I'm sorry,” Lillian tried. “I shouldn't have said that stuff in front of you. You're still just a kid…”

“It's okay, Mom,” said William, and he smiled a little at her. (It looked exactly like the repressed smile she'd seen on Dana a few times, Lillian realized with a pang.) “I get worried too, you know? You and Dad getting sick was… scary.”

It was scary for her, too; it felt like the entire world was falling apart. She had called to check on their family back in Wyoming as soon as she was well enough. The virus had been shipped out there quicker than she expected, and while her mother was still unconscious and Toby’s sister was still in critical condition, things were still looking up. Casualties were high in every city around the world, the news had said; they could've been a lot less fortunately. (Selfishly, Lillian was just glad her son was immune. He'd be safe no matter what.)

“I know, son,” Toby was reassuring him. “But you did good. You did a good job.”

William bit his lower lip. “I know,” he muttered. “I didn't have much of a choice.” He flopped back on the bed, burrowing in under the covers until they could barely see him. “Good night, guys,” he said with a certain amount of finality. _I am done for tonight._

Lillian could understand that. She liked to talk about things, get her feelings out in the open (under normal circumstances at least), but William was closed off, preferred holing up in his room, long, moody silences punctuated by snapping at whoever tried to talk to him, insisting he was fine when he clearly wasn't. She knew what he was doing and she wasn't going to push. It had been a long day, and she was tired of talking.

“Good night, Will,” she replied, flipping off the lamp and curling under the comforter next to Toby.

\---

The first time Monica had shown up on their doorstep, Toby had been unable to move out of bed and it had taken a lot of effort for Lillian to get up. William had been puttering nervously around the house, digging through medicine cabinets and trying to get a signal on his phone or an Internet connection. “I called Caleb, he said his parents were sick, too, and he felt shitty, but the call got cut off before we could finish,” he babbled in the doorway to their room, clutching his phone in his hands. “We have some flu medicine, but I, um, I don't think this is the flu, Mom.”

Lillian coughed sharply, tucking blankets tighter around them. Toby was hotter than an oven and unresponsive, face coated with sweat. She was freezing, shuddering with chattering teeth. She was wearing three sweaters and four quilts piled over them and she still wasn't warm. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been this scared. “I don't think it's the flu,” she confirmed.

“How are you feeling? Any better?” Will’s fingers clenched tighter around the phone when he saw Lillian shake her head. “I'm worried about Grandma,” he stammered. “Should I go check on Grandma? I can take the car, I've driven on the farm before, remember, and I'll get my permit in a few months…”

“No, baby,” Lillian murmured. She shoved at pillows and scooted until she was sitting upright and could look her son in the eye. He was tall, taller than she'd expected when he was so small. _At least he's not sick,_ she thought, and almost smiled. She hoped Toby would pull through along with William, if no one else, but she knew he'd put their son first, too. “It's okay. Calm down, sweetie. There's nothing you can do.”

William grew even paler, and he shook his head rapidly. “No, that's not true, Mom,” he said desperately. “There's gotta be something.”

She was ready to shake her head and reassure him again, but the knock on the door came first. William's eyes lit up. “That could be Grandma,” he said eagerly. “Or Aunt Milly, or Jack… Or help, maybe. Mom, I'll be right back.” And he scrambled out of the room, feet pounding the floorboards.

Lillian didn't know who it was, but she had a feeling it wasn't her mom or Toby’s sister. She managed to get out of bed--slowly and sluggishly, but still--and padded across the floor and down the stairs. By the time she reached the living room, she'd spotted the rain-soaked dark-haired woman standing in the front room with William. William's brow was furrowed, his arms wrapped around himself. She didn't recognize the woman.

Lillian coughed, rasped, “Who are you?” at them.

The woman turned, hair slipping over her shoulders, and offered Lillian a small smile, presenting her with an FBI badge. “My name is Monica Reyes,” she said. “I'm here to help you.”

“Mom, sit down,” William said, rushing at her.

Lillian let her son lead her to a chair, not taking her eyes off of Monica Reyes. “Who _are_ you?” she asked, reaching out to grab her son's elbow. “Why are you here to help us?”

“I knew William when he was a baby,” said Monica calmly. “I know why he isn't sick.”

William didn't react; his jaw was set in a way that suggested he'd already heard that. “Wait, a-are you his… his birth mother?” Lillian stammered, holding her son's arm tighter. ( _Her_ son, a petulant voice in her head declared. Her son.)

“No,” Monica said quickly. “But I know his pa--his birth parents. His birth mother is also immune. This virus… she'll need William's help to come up with a cure.”

“A cure?” Lillian asked. “William?” Her son, how could he be the savior of the world?

William clenched his jaw tighter. “Th-these people,” he addressed Monica. “They can help my parents?”

Monica looked past him, to Lillian. There was something in her eyes that Lillian couldn't read, but it was something like pity. “Yes,” she said softly.

“Okay, then we'll come with you.” There was finality in William's voice, a maturity. Lillian started to protest, but he turned to face her and whispered, “Mom, we have to.” He gulped. “For Dad. For you.”

She'd wanted to protest more, but there didn't seem to be another option. Monica Reyes had a badge, and she said she could help. William was determined to do it. There didn't seem to be another choice, and she was too weak to argue. Monica had a plane. She loaded Lillian and Toby onto it and hooked them up to IVFs. William sat across from them, fidgeting as he looked at them nervously. Lillian was tired, but she stayed awake long enough to discuss things with her son. His eyes were full of fear, anxiousness rocketing through him. “I'm going to meet my birth parents,” he mumbled at one point. “I've thought about this since I was little, but now… I'm terrified.”

She had reached across the space between the seats and squeezed his hand. “Don't be scared,” she said, reaching out with her other hand and smoothing his hair. “They’re going to love you, baby.”

She'd fallen unconscious later and woken up in a strange guest room. William was there, beside a red-haired woman who had his eyes. She'd known all at once. She couldn't help thinking, _Life will never be the same._

The second time Monica Reyes showed up on their doorstep, Lillian was expecting it. She was brushing her teeth with the toothbrush they'd lifted from behind the front desk when she heard the door open. “Hey, Mom, Miss Reyes is here!” William called.

“It's Monica, William, really,” Monica was saying with some amusement in her voice as Lillian came out of the bathroom. “Hi, Mrs. Van de Kamp,” she added.

(Everyone here called her Mrs. Van de Kamp, like she was a teacher or a CEO or something. She made all of her friends in Wyoming call her Lillian. But then again, she wasn't sure she could count these people as friends, could she.)

“Hi, Miss Reyes,” Lillian said, tucking her hands in her armpits. “What's going on?”

“We're meeting in the lobby to figure out our next move,” she said. “The best way to keep Will safe.”

William bounced back and forth on his toes, nervous. “Is Scully okay?”

“She's fine, William, don't worry.” Monica reached out and squeezed his shoulder, smiling gently. “You did a good job, kiddo.”

William muttered something of thanks uncomfortably. Lillian rubbed his arm before saying, “We'll be there.”

Monica thanked them before moving on, her hair slipping over the shoulders of her suit jacket. William closed the door behind her and propped his elbow up on the door frame, resting his cheek on his arm. “I wonder what they think our next move should be,” he said quietly.

“I'm sure it's going to be something to keep you safe,” Lillian replied evenly, adjusting her sweater cuffs.

“Figures.” Will cleared his throat, bouncing back and forth on his heels.

“That's the most important thing,” she said, a slight edge to her voice. “To all of us.”

“I _know,_ ” he said, the same edge to his voice. He fiddled with the chain lock on the door. “We'll go when Dad gets out of the shower.”

“Right,” she said, and her voice grew husky with emotions she couldn't place. “Right.”

“Mom?”

“Yes?” She was already turning around to check and see how many of the news channels were up.

“I don't know what to do.”

Startled, she turned toward her son. He looked lanky and awkward against the door, bony wrists poking out of his Pink Floyd shirt and jeans torn from the altercation yesterday. “What do you mean, Will?”

William’s face was white, tensed as he stood in front of her. “I… never mind. It's nothing,” he said tightly.

“Will, honey…” she started, but Toby came out of the bathroom before she could finish.

He looked between them, eyebrows raising. “What's going on?”

“Nothing,” William said in a rush. “Monica wants us all to meet, Dad. Decide our next move and… and whatever.”

“Okay,” he said lightly. He was still looking between them, trying to discern the problem. “Lil?”

Lillian let out her breath with a whoosh. “It's nothing, hon. You ready to go?”

“Sure, just let me get my shoes on.” He brushed her shoulder comfortingly as he passed.

William was still staring at his shoes. He may have been half a foot taller than her, but he looked very small at the moment. “Will,” she whispered. “Will. You can talk to me, you know.”

He gulped. “I know, Mom.”

\---

Dana looked a lot better than she had last night, if slightly off kilter. She offered William a smile when they entered, and William smiled back, in the same awkward aura he'd had about him since they'd all met. Mulder looked at Lillian and Toby worriedly before reaching out and patting William on the shoulder. Lillian tried to nod her dissent, but she was sure that it looked stranger than probably intended.

Monica Reyes had no problems with awkwardness, of course; “Well,” she said as they all sat at the abandoned continental breakfast area, “there's a couple of things I've been considering that I'd like to discuss with you all…”

“I think William should go with Mulder and Dana,” Lillian blurted.

The whole table sort of froze. Mulder and Dana were staring at her with incredulity, some sort of quiet awe. Maybe something like gratitude. William was staring, too, and she couldn't read his look. She couldn't see Toby’s face. She swallowed, awkwardly, and wiped her palms on her pants legs. “I-I mean, just until this is over,” she said, stilted. “I mean. We're not trained FBI agents… and you can keep him safe, right?” She addressed William's birth parents directly.

Dana was paling, fidgeting in her seat as her eyes traveled from Lillian to William to Mulder and then back to William. Mulder cleared his throat. He was looking at William, too. (William was looking at nobody; his neck was red behind his hair, and Lillian could tell he was embarrassed.) “I… I can't make any promises on whether or not Will would be safe with us,” said Mulder. Dana was holding his hand, under the table, and Lillian wondered who else had noticed. “But… I can promise you we'd do anything in the world to keep him safe. Anything.”

They were both looking at William. Lillian swallowed and looked at them. She didn't know what to say. Under the table, she felt Toby take her hand and squeeze it. “That's all we can really ask,” he said.

Lillian looked at William. He was fidgeting anxiously, picking at the hem of his t-shirt. “William?” Dana asked softly. “What do you think?” Lillian reached out and rubbed his back.

“I… whatever you guys think is best,” William mumbled. “I'll do that.”

Lillian kept up the easy motion of her hand along her son's spine. She felt terrible for the position he was in. The position they were all in.

Monica cleared her throat, and everyone's attention shifted to her. “That fits in with one of my plans,” she said. “We can put you into witness protection programs, make sure you're hidden well. But I think the best course of action is to make sure you're well hidden.”

“Couldn't we all stay together?” William croaked. Lillian’s hand stilled, but she didn't pull away. Dana and Mulder were looking at him again. He squirmed slightly, fingers tapping on his knee.

“I don't think so, sweetie,” said Monica. “We want to throw them off guard, and I think they'll expect us all to stay together. I think the best way to keep everyone safe is to make them think you went home with your parents. Meanwhile, you'll be hiding out with Mulder and Scully until it's safe.”

“And there's measures being taken to _make_ it safe?” Mulder asked, sounding slightly irritated.

“Of course, Mulder, we're working on it. We just want to take every precaution, considering what happened yesterday,” Monica said quickly.

William was already shaking his head. “Bu-but what about Mom and Dad? Won't they be in danger if they think I'm with them?”

“I'm making sure the Syndicate thinks you all will be headed home, but they'll be posted somewhere else. With protection,” Monica said gently. “Everyone will be okay, I promise.”

William was tensed under her hand. He nodded stiffly.

“So they'll think William's with us,” Toby said. “They won't know where he is.”

“That's definitely the hope.”

He squeezed her hand again. “I think that sounds like the best plan.”

It stung like hell to hear it. She didn't want William to leave. She wanted to know he was safe, to be able to protect him herself. She didn't want these strangers to die for him. But when she looked at Mulder and Dana, at the determination (the love) in their eyes when they looked at him. They had guns. They were trained FBI agents. They could take care of him. She forced herself to nod, her hand in Toby’s and her other hand on William's back.

\---

They had the arrangements made. Lillian and Toby were leaving in the afternoon. Mulder and Dana leave for a safe house with William the next night. William was back in the room, lying on his stomach on the bed and flipping through a book he'd found behind the front desk.

Lillian was watching him out of the corner of her eye from the edge of the other bed. He'd barely said anything since they left the lobby. “Will?” she asked softly. “Are you okay?”

He started, looking over at her. “Yeah, um.” He sat up, shifting to face her. “I. Just.” He swallowed, brushing hair out of his face. It had been nearly a month since she'd trimmed his hair, and it was growing overlong. “I can't… I can't leave you and Dad.”

“Oh, honey.” She reached out and smoothed the cowlicks at the back of his head. “Honey, it won't be forever.” She could pretend the idea of William going with them didn't kill her. “It'd just be while it was dangerous. You'd come back to live with us.” She wouldn’t let anything else happen. He was their son.

“No, I know, it's…” He sighed, eyes closing, and shifted away from her. “I like Mulder and Scully, and I don't want anything to happen to them. But.” He gulped, staring at his ragged sneakers. “You and Dad… if I leave, I won't be there to protect you.”

“You're not supposed to protect us; we're supposed to protect you.”

“You don't have the… you can't do what I can.” He gulped. “And I… I like Mulder and Scully. A lot. I want to get to know them, and I want them to be safe, too. But you and Dad…” He ducked his head, fingernails digging under the loose threads of his jeans. “I'm so scared that if I leave you, I'll never see you again.”

Tears burned in Lillian’s eyes. “Oh, Will.” She leaned across the space between the beds and hugged him and he didn't resist. He rested his chin on her shoulder and embraced her tightly. They hadn't done anything like this since he was twelve, when Toby was in the hospital and they were both terrified out of their minds. “We're not going to die,” she said softly, although she didn't know. God, Toby; she knew he'd die for Will, but she didn't want to lose him either. She wished they could turn back time, go back to the way life had been before. “It's going to be fine.” William sniffled, once. “You should get to know your birth parents if you want to. You'll be safe with them.” She blinked hard and tried not to think about dying. “And you'll be home before you know it.”

“I know,” William mumbled. He hugged her tighter before pulling back. “Those FBI agents who helped Dana… they're coming with you, right?”

“Yes,” she said. The male one was about William's height and had a similar hair color; they were planning on lending him William's clothes and hoping he could pass for their son from a distance. “We'll be okay.” She ruffled his hair.

William cleared his throat, wiping his eyes. “Okay.”

Someone tapped on the door, and they both jumped. The door swung open and Toby poked his head in. “Hon? They're ready,” he said quietly.

Lillian blinked again, swallowing hard against the lump in her throat. “Okay.” She brushed her hand over William's head as she stood up. “Are you gonna be okay, sweetie?”

“Yeah, I'll be fine.” He stood, too, and hugged her again. She pressed her nose to his head like he was six again and going to spend a week with Toby’s parents in Oregon for the first time by himself. _I'll see him again,_ she told herself. _I will._

He kissed her cheek and muttered, “Love you, Mom.”

“I love you, too, William.” She smoothed his hair once and smiled at him. He went over to Toby and hugged him, too. Toby kissed the top of his head before tousling his hair. William shrugged him off and smirked, punching him in the arm.

“Be good,” Lillian said, trying to sound stern. “Mind your manners and don't make trouble for Mulder and Dana.”

“Mom, I _won't._ ” He was almost rolling his eyes, and it felt so normal.

“I know.” She smiled again, watery. “We'll miss you. Be safe.”

“You, too,” he said.

She kissed his forehead before turning and heading for the door. Toby gave a little wave, and William waved back. She smiled stubbornly until the door closed behind them. Toby’s fingers were pressed into the skin of her upper arm; he drew them down, across her palm until they were intertwined with hers. “He'll be okay,” he whispered.

Lillian sighed. “I hope so.”

“Mrs. Van de Kamp?” They turned and there was Dana behind them, coat loose over her shoulders and hair drawn back in a braid.

“Hey,” Lillian said, rubbing her thumb over Toby’s. “It's Lillian, really.”

“Right.” Dana cleared her throat, smoothing her shirt under the coat. “I just wanted to tell you… we'll keep him safe. We'll bring him home to you.”

Lillian gulped. She wasn't sure how she felt about these two people, William's birth parents, but there was sincerity in William's eyes. She could trust them with this. “I know,” she said.


End file.
